(a) Technical Field
The present invention relates to a disk of a horn for a vehicle. More particularly, it relates to a disk of a horn for a vehicle, which can generate a sound of various frequency components in a single disk-type horn and can improve the tone color of the horn in quality.
(b) Background Art
Generally, vehicles are equipped with horns that generate sounds by manipulation of a driver during an emergency situation to warn, e.g., walkers or other vehicles.
Examples of horns for vehicles include disk-type horns and shell-type horns. Disk-type horns include a diaphragm, a disk, and an electromagnet for vibrating the diaphragm and the disk. Also, a disk-type horn includes a contact for intermitting a current flowing into an electromagnet coil in linkage with the diaphragm. In disk-type horns, a sound is mainly generated by the vibration of a disk. Disk-type horns may be divided into a single disk type, which utilizes a single disk, and a multi-disk type, which utilizes a plurality of disks.
Single disk-type horns are disclosed in Korean Patent No. 10-0757249 and Korean Patent Application Publication No. 10-2010-0093508, and a multi-disk type horn is disclosed in Korean Patent No. 10-0391317, these applications are hereby incorporated by reference in their entirety.
In a shell-type horn, a horn having a shell shape is covered on a membrane to enhance low frequency components of a sound. The shell-type horn is configured to generate a sound via vibration of the membrane and sound amplification of the shell.
FIG. 1 illustrates a typical disk-type horn. Hereinafter, a horn 1 with a single disk will be described in detail with reference to FIG. 1. As shown in FIG. 1, the concavity 11a is disposed at the central portion of a main body 11, and a pole 12 protrudes in the concavity 11a. The pole 12 is wound with a coil 13. Also, a diaphragm 14 is coupled along the outer edge of the main body 11, and a disk 15 is coupled to an armature 16 to be disposed over the diaphragm 14. The armature 16 is disposed over the pole 12.
A stand 17 and a plate spring 18 are coupled to the main body 11 at one side thereof, and extend toward the other side thereof to form a contact 19. The positive terminal of a battery B is electrically connected to the stand, and a grounded operation switch HS is electrically connected to the plate spring 18. The disk 15, the diaphragm 14, and the armature 16 constitute one vibrator. When the vibrator rapidly vibrates, a sound is generated. However, the sound generated by single disk type horns is relatively sharp and the tone color is poor because the main frequency components (i.e., resonant frequency) of the sound are located near about 3 kHz. The audible frequency component ranges from about 20 Hz to about 20 kHz. Particularly, the most sensitive frequency component to human's ear ranges from about 2 kHz to about 5 kHz, and is thus, sharply perceived.
On the other hand, since multi-disk type horns have a plurality of disks, a harmonious sound having various frequency components can be generated. In this case, discomfort caused by a monotonous sound can be somewhat reduced, but the weight and the manufacturing cost of this type of horn can increase due to the addition of disks compared to single disk-type horns.
Also, shell-type horns can generate sounds having various frequency components of about 2 kHz or less, but the sound powers of shell-type horns are not enough to hear clearly. Therefore, usually two shell-type horns have to be equipped in a vehicle in order to comply with the sound pressure regulations. Accordingly, the installation cost can increase compared to disk-type horns.
The above information disclosed in this Background section is only for enhancing the understanding of the invention and therefore it may contain information that does not form the prior art that is already known in this country to a person of ordinary skill in the art.